The proof is in the pudding though: WotC cut support for pauper even though it fired more events than any other non-standard format. Why would they do that if what I said isn't true?
Also, while nobody online cracks packs to play constructed formats, constructed formats do give the cards in packs value, which is the reason drafters open the packs in the first place. Without rare/mythic constructed magic cards the sets are worthless and people will not draft them because they would lose money. Supporting a popular format that escews the use of those rare and mythic cards undercuts the value of them and the value of a pack and discourages people from buying them from the store.
Thanks for the continued efforts Gwyned. MPDC is about the only time I play at all anymore, so it really is greatly appreciated.
The only reason I play magic at all these days is standard pauper. So, nothing is more aggravating than popping into the just for fun area and clearly posting a STANDARD PAUPER message in the description box only to have your opponent drop an artifact land or something similar on the first turn. It would be nice if they added support for standard pauper, but at the very least I'd love to see a filter for it to help ratchet down the frustration level of spoiled games/matches because so many people just completely ignore the game descriptions. Come on Wizards, fix it already.
First of all, good report. Always nice to read about legacy on this site, especially when it is dead on mtgo.
A few comments - your first U/W list, no wonder it faulted, I counted only 18 instants/sorceries in your list, most RUG lists run like 28-30. As much as I'd love to think Delver is good in U/W, I really don't think it belongs. Delver thrives on the tempo it provides in a RUG shell. I've tried Delver in a grixis build and it seems ok, but in all my testing I think it's home is best suited for RUG.
Regarding passing the turn as time expires:
Turn 0 - them
Turn 1 - you
Turn 2 - them
Turn 3 - you
Turn 4 - them
Turn 5 - you
You both get equal amounts of turns, so I'm not sure what you mean in that regard.
I guess the JVL article is... O-K... having Pauper on there is pointless since they reduced the number of Dailies... seeing two decks a week from Pauper? doesn't really tell me anything about the meta... the Std info on the otherhand seems more on point since there are more events to pull from...
Other than buying packs, how does Wizards profit from one format more than another? Now if WotC sold individual cards, than giving support only to format with more expensive cards makes sense. Building packs for Standard, Modern, or Block Constructed is *even worse* than buying packs for Standard Pauper.
The Pauper format already exists, and pays out prizes for events. Thus, since Pauper events already exist, and are *considerably* cheaper than Standard, Modern, or Limited, it would seem that having an alternative format with tournament events is perfectly acceptable. Yet by no means does this detract from participation in other formats.
I have a very hard time believing that Wizards makes a significant amount of money on Magic online from people buying packs to play in Constructed formats. Whether or not they make money off these events is outside the scope of this article, but I have a VERY hard time believing that they lose money on these events, considering their frequency and level of participation.
...but Std Pauper becoming an actual supported format would not make any business sense for WotC, it is in no way good for Wizards (which is why they are slowly retracting support for classic pauper as well). Sure, it would fire a lot of tournaments, but WotC actually loses money on tournaments (they generally pay out more in prizes than the total cost of entry into them). The point of sanctioned play is to drive sales of their core product (packs of Magic cards).
Allowing players to play a competitive format that, for all intents and purposes, does not require them to buy packs of Magic cards (who would buy packs to build pauper decks? you can buy a whole deck for the cost of a single pack) is a terrible business move. Plus, pauper formats erode interest in other tournament formats by giving players looking to play for prizes and much cheaper alternative to "normal" formats. Why pay hundreds of dollars to build a standard deck when I can spend 5 and play for the EXACT SAME PRIZES with a pauper deck? A lot of people would do the math and find that the EV of pauper is just sooooo much better than other formats (see: Legacy and Classic) that they will choose to just play pauper instead of anything else.
Pauper is bad for Wizards, and I really think it is bad for every other format as well =/
Your lengthy article definitely fits the later part of your name ;)
Thank you for a very well written article which caters to a segment of the MTGO universe, the budget player.
For many years I have played online, but with a young family and real life pressures, I was unable to spend very much on MTGO. I would loved to have discovered articles like yours "back in the day" ;)
I really like your change to a $5 per week, build on your deck(s) theme, because that is exactly how I (and I suspect others) have gone about playing online. MTGO is a game that constantly changes and therefore additional $ spent on it equate to those who change from game to game. It is a mindset that forces some people to be a little too budget minded if they cannot grasp that concept.
Any plans/thoughts on building Standard instead of block? Completely agree on the Riders of Gavony, they are great value for $.
Adding your dialogue of why you played the way you did will go a long way to helping others learn to play, as well as yourself. I suspect you will get some nasty feedback, but ignore those who's criticism are not constructive!
Cheers, see you online...
I did the contest for a while but the problem is the organization is haphazard and the judging very subjective and sporadic. (I even wrote an article promoting it once a few years ago.)
Excellent article. Wizards really need Standard Pauper and with the arguments presented in this article, I believe it is only a matter of time. What exactly does Wizards stand to lose?
Just for the record, my Ulasht deck will remain an Ulasht deck. Then again my deck is of the death touch variety you mention. I might try Thormok in the 99, but until it can ping it can not command for me.
The new planechase certainly did bring some interesting elements to the table. I have had a blue black "sabotage" deck forever in paper. It started of with Oona, then went to Wrexial, but is now being lead by Vela and some of her new toys have been added too.
I like some of the new token cards for red green, and will have to consider them for my Ulasht deck.
I have seen maelstrom wanderer a lot lately as an opposing commander. He is certainly a pretty cool and potentially fun commander. Unfortunately he always seems to be commanding pretty boring RUG good stuff decks. I just think he has more potential for interesting play then that.
I've been messing around with a block angel of glory's rise reanimator combo deck, it's pretty crazy how easily you can do 20 points in a turn by reanimating angel when you've got a bunch of Goldnight commander, Kruin Strikers, lightning maulers and zealous conscripts in your graveyard :). I took one opponent down to almost -40 from 16 life in one turn! Can't see that you'll be alive by the time you can hard cast it though, I wouldn't be putting too many of them in a non-reanimator deck.
I admit that I heard the complaints about the unplayability of the set right as it came out, so obviously before anyone had a chance to put any of the cards to practice. In addition, I know practically nothing of the tournament scene other than Jace TMS was really good, and you should run Griselbrand. I can definitely see how the cascade guys would be playable though (Hypergenesis?). The Strix is a little more surprising to me, but what the hell do I know, I just write about Commander.
I figured that was the answer about unblockability, but (especially now that the servers seem to function much better than in years past) it's always nice to think that there's some funky rules loophole that can cause the space time continuum to collapse in upon itself and for CERN to try and use the Hadron Collider to come to the rescue. Or something. Maybe that's just me.
Are there really people complaining that these sets don't have enough Legacy-playable cards? What about Todd Anderson ending 5th place in a recent SCG Legacy Open with SIX of these Planechase cards in the deck? (The cascade ones.) I think this kind of set always hides a few Legacy bombs (last year's Commander decks had a few as well). For instance, your Commander-focused point of view kinda dismissed Baleful Strix (I can see why), but it's actually a high-priced chase card right now.
Cascade is featured three times, not two. (Well, it's actually featured FOUR times, but two are on the same card :)
And if you put Steel of the Godhead on a creature with Indrik Umbra, you're just wasting most of what the Umbra does, since it says "creatures able to block it", and nobody is able to block an unblockable.
The biggest problem with classic is that it is not for new players (unlike standard). The monetary investment required to make a lot of the netdecks leads to people just not bothering with it. A lot of the decks are very strong, as well. I only ever play classic in the casual room when I want to bust out my Kokusho deck.
It might but I doubt it. There will probly be alot of people that have it as a comment before the game fires. However, the classic 2hg is where i see the most new players and if they want more people to play, this seems like another thing to sour new players to the mtg world.
"Classic" in this context means "competitive Classic" not just any decks using the entire mtgo card pool. I'm sure Power 9 could be banned in Two Headed Giant.
OK. Somehow this article was turned into a p9 chat. My opinion is to keep it away at all cost. My only reason is a biased one. I am a fan of the 2hg, if you want to see classic events fire, go to the multiplayer room. There are alot of decks I wish would not exist, but they do. I just don't want my wishlist to grow.
My thought about introducing the P9 and Vintage is this: Wizards has said in a twitter post that "we can only do it once" so it has to be done the right way. They want to do it in a way that will bring more people into mtgo from paper, and create more accounts. Simply propping up a format at the expense of the other formats is robbing Peter to pay Paul and unproductive. So they'll do it when it will bring in new customers to the online, not just to shift players from standard or modern to Classic.
The problem is that the interface is an embarrassing joke. People who've ignored mtgo until now might join temporarily for the P9, but then they'll remember why they stayed away in the first place; the interface sucks.
So we won't see P9 until after the next interface is released and bugs are ironed out.
Once upon a time, I saw a column on the mothership saying that they would avoid good lifelink creatures on common because that would cause the limited games to be too long. Looking at this set, i think that they forgot that or they were wrong before.
The proof is in the pudding though: WotC cut support for pauper even though it fired more events than any other non-standard format. Why would they do that if what I said isn't true?
Also, while nobody online cracks packs to play constructed formats, constructed formats do give the cards in packs value, which is the reason drafters open the packs in the first place. Without rare/mythic constructed magic cards the sets are worthless and people will not draft them because they would lose money. Supporting a popular format that escews the use of those rare and mythic cards undercuts the value of them and the value of a pack and discourages people from buying them from the store.
Thanks for the continued efforts Gwyned. MPDC is about the only time I play at all anymore, so it really is greatly appreciated.
The only reason I play magic at all these days is standard pauper. So, nothing is more aggravating than popping into the just for fun area and clearly posting a STANDARD PAUPER message in the description box only to have your opponent drop an artifact land or something similar on the first turn. It would be nice if they added support for standard pauper, but at the very least I'd love to see a filter for it to help ratchet down the frustration level of spoiled games/matches because so many people just completely ignore the game descriptions. Come on Wizards, fix it already.
I have already emailed Chris, as have 2 of my real world friends who play MTGO as well.
First of all, good report. Always nice to read about legacy on this site, especially when it is dead on mtgo.
A few comments - your first U/W list, no wonder it faulted, I counted only 18 instants/sorceries in your list, most RUG lists run like 28-30. As much as I'd love to think Delver is good in U/W, I really don't think it belongs. Delver thrives on the tempo it provides in a RUG shell. I've tried Delver in a grixis build and it seems ok, but in all my testing I think it's home is best suited for RUG.
Regarding passing the turn as time expires:
Turn 0 - them
Turn 1 - you
Turn 2 - them
Turn 3 - you
Turn 4 - them
Turn 5 - you
You both get equal amounts of turns, so I'm not sure what you mean in that regard.
I guess the JVL article is... O-K... having Pauper on there is pointless since they reduced the number of Dailies... seeing two decks a week from Pauper? doesn't really tell me anything about the meta... the Std info on the otherhand seems more on point since there are more events to pull from...
Other than buying packs, how does Wizards profit from one format more than another? Now if WotC sold individual cards, than giving support only to format with more expensive cards makes sense. Building packs for Standard, Modern, or Block Constructed is *even worse* than buying packs for Standard Pauper.
The Pauper format already exists, and pays out prizes for events. Thus, since Pauper events already exist, and are *considerably* cheaper than Standard, Modern, or Limited, it would seem that having an alternative format with tournament events is perfectly acceptable. Yet by no means does this detract from participation in other formats.
I have a very hard time believing that Wizards makes a significant amount of money on Magic online from people buying packs to play in Constructed formats. Whether or not they make money off these events is outside the scope of this article, but I have a VERY hard time believing that they lose money on these events, considering their frequency and level of participation.
If anything, a rotating pauper format would make me very interested - which is more than can be said for classic pauper.
I'm all for the idea.
Great job sir. Keep these coming. Now is the time WoTc, if not events then atleast filter support.
...but Std Pauper becoming an actual supported format would not make any business sense for WotC, it is in no way good for Wizards (which is why they are slowly retracting support for classic pauper as well). Sure, it would fire a lot of tournaments, but WotC actually loses money on tournaments (they generally pay out more in prizes than the total cost of entry into them). The point of sanctioned play is to drive sales of their core product (packs of Magic cards).
Allowing players to play a competitive format that, for all intents and purposes, does not require them to buy packs of Magic cards (who would buy packs to build pauper decks? you can buy a whole deck for the cost of a single pack) is a terrible business move. Plus, pauper formats erode interest in other tournament formats by giving players looking to play for prizes and much cheaper alternative to "normal" formats. Why pay hundreds of dollars to build a standard deck when I can spend 5 and play for the EXACT SAME PRIZES with a pauper deck? A lot of people would do the math and find that the EV of pauper is just sooooo much better than other formats (see: Legacy and Classic) that they will choose to just play pauper instead of anything else.
Pauper is bad for Wizards, and I really think it is bad for every other format as well =/
Pyschobabble
Your lengthy article definitely fits the later part of your name ;)
Thank you for a very well written article which caters to a segment of the MTGO universe, the budget player.
For many years I have played online, but with a young family and real life pressures, I was unable to spend very much on MTGO. I would loved to have discovered articles like yours "back in the day" ;)
I really like your change to a $5 per week, build on your deck(s) theme, because that is exactly how I (and I suspect others) have gone about playing online. MTGO is a game that constantly changes and therefore additional $ spent on it equate to those who change from game to game. It is a mindset that forces some people to be a little too budget minded if they cannot grasp that concept.
Any plans/thoughts on building Standard instead of block? Completely agree on the Riders of Gavony, they are great value for $.
Adding your dialogue of why you played the way you did will go a long way to helping others learn to play, as well as yourself. I suspect you will get some nasty feedback, but ignore those who's criticism are not constructive!
Cheers, see you online...
JVL writing about Tourney decks? What changed? (nevermind I know, he's posting other people's decks now.)
the link for magic set editor is here: http://magicseteditor.sourceforge.net/
I did the contest for a while but the problem is the organization is haphazard and the judging very subjective and sporadic. (I even wrote an article promoting it once a few years ago.)
Excellent article. Wizards really need Standard Pauper and with the arguments presented in this article, I believe it is only a matter of time. What exactly does Wizards stand to lose?
aparently in my zeal to write Puremtgo articles I forgot how to type out my own screenname, it's AtomicBoosh . lol.
Just for the record, my Ulasht deck will remain an Ulasht deck. Then again my deck is of the death touch variety you mention. I might try Thormok in the 99, but until it can ping it can not command for me.
The new planechase certainly did bring some interesting elements to the table. I have had a blue black "sabotage" deck forever in paper. It started of with Oona, then went to Wrexial, but is now being lead by Vela and some of her new toys have been added too.
I like some of the new token cards for red green, and will have to consider them for my Ulasht deck.
I have seen maelstrom wanderer a lot lately as an opposing commander. He is certainly a pretty cool and potentially fun commander. Unfortunately he always seems to be commanding pretty boring RUG good stuff decks. I just think he has more potential for interesting play then that.
no its not.
I just Love this game
Funny interraction at the end there :).
I've been messing around with a block angel of glory's rise reanimator combo deck, it's pretty crazy how easily you can do 20 points in a turn by reanimating angel when you've got a bunch of Goldnight commander, Kruin Strikers, lightning maulers and zealous conscripts in your graveyard :). I took one opponent down to almost -40 from 16 life in one turn! Can't see that you'll be alive by the time you can hard cast it though, I wouldn't be putting too many of them in a non-reanimator deck.
I admit that I heard the complaints about the unplayability of the set right as it came out, so obviously before anyone had a chance to put any of the cards to practice. In addition, I know practically nothing of the tournament scene other than Jace TMS was really good, and you should run Griselbrand. I can definitely see how the cascade guys would be playable though (Hypergenesis?). The Strix is a little more surprising to me, but what the hell do I know, I just write about Commander.
I figured that was the answer about unblockability, but (especially now that the servers seem to function much better than in years past) it's always nice to think that there's some funky rules loophole that can cause the space time continuum to collapse in upon itself and for CERN to try and use the Hadron Collider to come to the rescue. Or something. Maybe that's just me.
Great job as always.
Are there really people complaining that these sets don't have enough Legacy-playable cards? What about Todd Anderson ending 5th place in a recent SCG Legacy Open with SIX of these Planechase cards in the deck? (The cascade ones.) I think this kind of set always hides a few Legacy bombs (last year's Commander decks had a few as well). For instance, your Commander-focused point of view kinda dismissed Baleful Strix (I can see why), but it's actually a high-priced chase card right now.
Cascade is featured three times, not two. (Well, it's actually featured FOUR times, but two are on the same card :)
And if you put Steel of the Godhead on a creature with Indrik Umbra, you're just wasting most of what the Umbra does, since it says "creatures able to block it", and nobody is able to block an unblockable.
The biggest problem with classic is that it is not for new players (unlike standard). The monetary investment required to make a lot of the netdecks leads to people just not bothering with it. A lot of the decks are very strong, as well. I only ever play classic in the casual room when I want to bust out my Kokusho deck.
It might but I doubt it. There will probly be alot of people that have it as a comment before the game fires. However, the classic 2hg is where i see the most new players and if they want more people to play, this seems like another thing to sour new players to the mtg world.
"Classic" in this context means "competitive Classic" not just any decks using the entire mtgo card pool. I'm sure Power 9 could be banned in Two Headed Giant.
OK. Somehow this article was turned into a p9 chat. My opinion is to keep it away at all cost. My only reason is a biased one. I am a fan of the 2hg, if you want to see classic events fire, go to the multiplayer room. There are alot of decks I wish would not exist, but they do. I just don't want my wishlist to grow.
My thought about introducing the P9 and Vintage is this: Wizards has said in a twitter post that "we can only do it once" so it has to be done the right way. They want to do it in a way that will bring more people into mtgo from paper, and create more accounts. Simply propping up a format at the expense of the other formats is robbing Peter to pay Paul and unproductive. So they'll do it when it will bring in new customers to the online, not just to shift players from standard or modern to Classic.
The problem is that the interface is an embarrassing joke. People who've ignored mtgo until now might join temporarily for the P9, but then they'll remember why they stayed away in the first place; the interface sucks.
So we won't see P9 until after the next interface is released and bugs are ironed out.
Once upon a time, I saw a column on the mothership saying that they would avoid good lifelink creatures on common because that would cause the limited games to be too long. Looking at this set, i think that they forgot that or they were wrong before.